The Field Museum faces a real threat

I mostly want to use this forum to discuss new, exciting, and integrative paleontological research, but today I need to discuss something that is threatening new, exciting, and integrative paleontological research. Actually, the threat goes much further beyond that, because it threatens research in other types of zoology, botany, anthropology, and geology as well.

The Field Museum in Chicago, IL, is one of the world’s largest natural history museums. By “largest”, I don’t mean “square footage devoted to exhibits”, although it has a lot of that. I’m talking about its collections of natural history specimens, which for the whole museum currently totals over 25 million specimens. But even if we just stick to paleontology, the Field Museum really is a treasure: over 376,700 fossil plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates. It’s an important paleo collection, too, with many rare species and many holotype specimens (the specimens scientists designate as an exemplar when they name a new species). The specimens in the Field Museum collections are researched and augmented by museum curators and their students, but because it is so large and important, the collections really are of global importance. Field Museum specimens are very often studied by other scientists all over the world, who also add new specimens to the collections. This heavy use and constant increase requires specimens to be maintained by a skilled staff of collections managers, preparators, and conservators.

Beyond cataloging the diversity of past and present life, Field Museum scientists do a lot of other types of research, which include sorting out the evolutionary and ecological relationships of organisms, exploring the history of the solar system, understanding the effects of climate change, preserving the cultural heritage of many indigenous peoples, and conserving the planet. The scientific mission includes training undergraduate and graduate student researchers, with curators sponsoring students and teaching at three local universities (Northwestern, U of Chicago, and my alma mater, the University of Illinois-Chicago). The scientific and collections staff also does a lot of outreach and education, both in the museum and in Chicago-area schools. This includes a special collection of museum specimens that schools can borrow, to give students hands-on experience with the scientific method.

In short, the Field Museum is an outstanding and important scientific, educational, and cultural institution. You should definitely visit it if you ever travel to Chicago, and you should visit regularly if you live in Chicago.

Earlier this week, the Chicago Tribune, Scientific American, and others reported some highly disturbing news, namely that their forthcoming budget cuts will primarily affect their research and curatorial staff. The Field Museum has a lot of debt, and have already reached the limits of their credit. They have already made a lot of cuts to support staff (janitorial, administrative, etc.), and increased revenue through admissions price changes a few years ago. The current museum president and CEO, Richard Lariviere, and the board of trustees don’t see any way to reduce costs besides narrowing the research scope of the museum, “monetizing” its collections (building new exhibits based on what they have in house already), and eliminating blockbuster travelling exhibits.

Make no mistake, this will have a huge impact on the museum’s ability to do basic science. By cutting scientists or, equally important, the people who maintain the collections, there will of course be a big and immediate hit to the scientific and educational missions of the museum. This impact is already felt; the Field Museum is under a hiring freeze that has left some collections without a curator in charge of them. And it will be felt further: Earlyreports indicate that the museum is looking into whether tenured curators might be let go. Dr. James Hanken, director of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, summarized it well in the above Scientific American article: “There’s no way the Field Museum will be able to maintain its position of prominence under those circumstances.”

But even if the economy bounces back quickly and no curators are lost, what happens in the interim is bound to have lasting negative effects. Nontenured staff are likely to get hit harder in the short term. Curators and students preserve the collections through research, but the collections staff are the people who preserve the collections physically and facilitate research, at the Field and elsewhere. If the museum “refocuses” its scientific mission to include just a few areas of research, some collections will suffer harder than others: loans not sent out or returned, broken specimens left unrepaired, specimens misplaced or misidentified, delicate specimens left to degrade at improper temperatures or low alcohol concentrations. Research collections cannot be maintained as a research tool by people who do not know what they are doing.

Can you fix this frog? I suspect you cannot. Image (c) 2012 Claire Smith, accessed on her flickr site.

If curators and other collections staff are axed, the specimens face a slow and sad scientific death. Collections can die from lack of physical maintenance (where they become functionally unusable), or they can die from a lack of research maintenance (where they become functionally irrelevant). Both are a danger here. This is one of the world’s great natural history collections; its scientific importance cannot be overstated. Its collections preserve the cultural heritage of many indigenous peoples, as well as the natural history heritage of all people. It would be a scientific and cultural tragedy to lose it in either the short or the long term.

Finally, on a personal note:

There is no part of my journey to becoming a professional scientist that has not been touched by the Field Museum. As a child, trips to the Field Museum inspired my love of science and sparked my curiosity about life, the Earth, and how they got this way. Part of the reason I am a biologist today is because my parents, grandparents, and teachers brought me to the Field Museum when I was young. As an undergraduate, I took classes from Field curators at UIC and I volunteered in the Geology Department preparing fossils. The hands-on experience working with fossil specimens and with museum scientists made me sure I wanted to pursue scientific research as a career. At that time, friendships and collaborations were formed that still thrive over a decade later. My MS, PhD, and current research include specimens from the Geology and Herpetology collections, and some of my earliest field experience was gained working with Field Museum paleontologists in Montana. I would not be where I am today without the Field Museum; the exhibits inspired me to love science, the curatorial staff encouraged me to do science, and the collections themselves continue to motivate me in both goals.

Science at the Field Museum is facing a real threat. If you have not signed this petition, please take a minute to do so. Please also take a few more minutes to write to the President and CEO of the Field Museum, Richard Lariviere, who can be reached at:

About Sarah Werning

NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stony Brook University. I study how bone tissue, growth, and metabolism evolve at macroevolutionary time scales. I have an inordinate fondness for reptiles.
(Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in my posts are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.)

13 Responses to The Field Museum faces a real threat

Hear hear Sarah. Threats like this to one of the world’s premier research and collections should be taken very seriously. The Field is in large part responsible for my interest and training in Evolutionary Biology and Paleontology too. I still use their collections and interact with their staff, faculty, and all of their trainees from over the years. I haven’t had to chance to bring my kid up there yet, I’m hoping I haven’t missed my chance.

I am about to sign the petition. However, I have some comments which I believe are signficant and which go to the main way in which the proposed restructuring and so on is proceeding. My website http://www.desgriffin.com might help understadning of my position. I am very familiar with the Field having visited it on several occasion in the 1990s to talk with senior staff and being aware of the work as a Research Scientist and museum director.

Only a very ignorant person would take the view that significant reduction in the capacity of the Field to understake its important tasks is of little or no concern. On the other hand, I know of no evidence over the last 30 or more years since the restructuring of The Natural History Museum in London when reiteration of the value of the natural history museum’s work was an important counter to intended cuts in funding and so on. The arguments advanced in the blog are all around how wonderful the Field is. Yes but what does that say about the future and what should be done?

Clearly the financial situation is not good at all thought it is not disastrous. One could ask what the Board was doing as more and more debt was taken on without, seemingly, careful assurance that the debt could be serviced. I would observe that giving up major temportary exhibitions would not seem to be a good idea. Have a look at the successful art museums and what route they have taken.

Given that the proposals for recovering from the present situation is not good, according to scientific staff, what alternative stratgies are there? It is important to recognise that the ongoing push to reduce government outlays and the substantial debt which all levels of government in the US have means little hope of government funded bailouts. President Obama however comes from Chicago and the Mayor was one of his closest advisors. It is probably disingenuous for me to suggest that perhaps someone ought to go and see those people, especially with fiscal cliffs in sight. Nevertheless.

The alternative is private funding. One of the reports notes substantial loyal supporters. It also mentions restructuring of the debt.

The drive by governments and others to ignore all the fabulous reports on the importance of the work of natural history museums in biodiversity and cultural history is one of the features of the last 30 or so years, as is the asserted failure of some elements of the environmental movement, as outlined some years ago by Schellenberger and Nordhaus. An underlying reason is the appalling devotion of those in government and their advisors to necoclassical economics and neoliberalism!

Again, simply highlighting the importance of the Field will not win the day: an argument must be developed which appeals to those who might help materially. After all, remember there are many other claimants around.

The response to the proposed cuts and the bajillion people who signed the petition make me think that the Field Museum could go a ways toward solving its debt problem with the equivalent of Kickstarter project. How many petition-signers wouldn’t kick in $10? I personally might kick in more than $10 if they did something like that.

BUT, I would want to see a workable financial plan in place for the future.

With regard to a financial plan, I think it would be very useful if the Field (and really ALL museums) would be more open about their finances and business models. After all, they are relying on the public for funding, why shouldn’t the public have knowledge of how their museum is being run? Take a quick glance at what Max Anderson implemented at IMA and DMA. http://dashboard.imamuseum.org/ and http://dmadashboard.org/ These websites let those who support or would support the museum know how the museum is being run and where the money goes.

You can view the Field’s latest annual report (2011) at http://fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2011_Annual_Report_0.pdf and the graphs on page 8 give a pretty good general overview of finances, but it doesn’t come close to the level of detail about operations that the DMA Dashboard offers. For those of us who would provide financial support, more information is better. It is time for museum administration and boards to come out of hiding and present their supporters with more and better information. The recent announcement of cuts at the Field leave members and small donors in the dark. We won’t know what is to be cut until the cuts are made and we have absolutely no voice in the process. Sure we have signed a petition, but what have we really contributed to the solution? Why should I invest in something that I have no voice in? The Field should be conversing with everyone who has an interest.

This was kind of a sad article to find because I have such fond memories of The Field Museum… I’ve seen some amazing exhibits there and I’ve only been twice! Thanks for sharing the link to the petition, tho…. Hopefully another signature will help! Best of luck.